Chinese hackers attacked Oregon aviation supplier, feds say

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal prosecutors say Chinese intelligence officers and hackers working for them have been charged with commercial espionage that included trying to steal information on commercial jet engines.

Prosecutors say the indictments announced Tuesday include officers working for the foreign intelligence arm of China's Ministry of State Security.

Eight people were indicted in San Diego federal court with conspiring from 2010 to 2015 to steal sensitive turbofan engine technology used in commercial aviation.Prosecutors say members of the conspiracy hacked into a French aerospace company that was developing the engines with a U.S. company. They also hacked into aerospace companies in Massachusetts, Oregon and Arizona that manufactured engine parts.

A Chinese state-owned aerospace company was working at the time to develop a similar type of engine for use in commercial aircraft.

The Oregon company discovered the hacking attempt in May 2015, according to the indictment. The Justice Department's announcement doesn't identify that company, but says it "built parts for the turbofan jet engine used in commercial airliners" and that the company "identified and removed the conspiracy's malware from its computer systems."

Portland-based Precision Castparts builds parts for fans in commercial jet engines. The company declined to say whether or not it is the business named in Tuesday's indictment but said it frequently works with the FBI to protect its intellectual property and applauded investigators' efforts.

"As a world leader in highly engineered and innovative aerospace products, we continuously work to secure our systems that contain information on our proprietary products and processes," Precision Castparts said in a written statement.